Host plants for the brown elfin
The garden plants whose leaves brown elfin caterpillars eat, and a bed the planner designed around them.
The brown elfin (Callophrys augustinus) is a butterfly. Like every butterfly and moth, it can lay its eggs only on the plants its caterpillars can eat, its host plants. A garden with nectar flowers feeds the adults as they pass; a garden with host plants is where the next generation is raised.
These three garden plants are recorded by NC State as hosts for its caterpillars. Expect chewed leaves: that is the point. Do not spray, and leave fallen leaves under the plants in winter, where many caterpillars and pupae spend it.
3 plants: 3 shrubs.
The host plants
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Highbush blueberry
6½ ft · early May to late May
The blueberry of gardens and farms: white bells in spring, heavy crops of fruit in summer, scarlet and orange leaves in autumn, and red twigs in winter.
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Salal
4 ft · late May to late June
Leathery, rounded, evergreen leaves, sold worldwide as florists' greenery, with strings of pinkish-white bells and edible, dark purple berries.
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Bearberry
8 in · early May to late May
A flat, trailing evergreen with small, glossy, leathery leaves that turn bronze-red in winter, tiny pink-white bells in spring and red berries in autumn.
A bed for the brown elfin
The planner designed this 16 × 8 ft (4.9 × 2.4 m) bed for zone 6 and full sun when this page was made, keeping bearberry and highbush blueberry on it.
The plants
- 1 Bearberry × 4, pink
- 2 Highbush blueberry × 1, white
- 3 Blanket flower 'Arizona Sun' × 7, red
- 4 White mugwort × 3, cream
- 5 Southernwood × 3, grey-green leaves
- 6 Little bluestem 'The Blues' × 3, tan
- 7 Easter lily × 5, white
- 8 Ornamental onion 'Purple Sensation' × 5, purple
- 9 Persian fritillary × 5, purple
Planned as a naturalistic planting: low grasses and groundcovers, the matrix, make up 28% of the planted ground. White mugwort and highbush blueberry anchor the back corners of the bed: the tallest plants on the plan stand there. The scheme leans cool (pink and purple) and uses red for warmth, with white, cream and tan to calm things between them.
The planner's own design check: 6 Excellent, 8 Good, 2 Satisfactory, 1 Needs revision. Its weakest point is right plant, right place: Every plant here suits your hardiness zone and light. Most of these plants want average soil, but highbush blueberry wants moist soil and white mugwort wants moist soil.
Open this bed in the planner Change its size, the sun or the style, move plants about, or swap one for another.
All 3 plants
Front of a bed 1
- Bearberry 8 in · early May to late May
Back of a bed 2
- Highbush blueberry 6½ ft · early May to late May
- Salal 4 ft · late May to late June